ANALYSE READING B2 ANIMAL

A.The continuous and reckless use of synthetic chemicals for the control of pests which pose a threat to agricultural crops and human health is proving to be counter-productive.. Accordi

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Testing animal intelligence

Biological control of pests

Source: ĐỀ THI IELTS READING

https://nativespeaker.vn/de-thi-ielts-reading-va-dap-an-biological-control-of-pests.html

A.The continuous and reckless use of synthetic chemicals for the control of pests which pose a threat to agricultural crops and human health is proving to be counter-productive Apart from engendering widespread ecological disorders, pesticides have contributed to the emergence of

a new breed of chemical-resistant, highly lethal superbugs

• Reckless use = careless use

• Counter-productive: have the opposite effect to the one that was intended

• Lethal: causing or able to cause death SYN: deadly, fatal

B According to a recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), more than 300 species of agricultural pests have developed resistance to a wide range of potent chemicals Not to

be left behind are the disease-spreading pests, about 100 species of which have become immune

to a variety of insecticides now in use

• Developed resistance: able to resist something 

C One glaring disadvantage of pesticides' application is that, while destroying harmful pests, they also wipe out many useful non-targeted organisms, which keep the growth of the pest population in check This results in what agro-ecologists call the 'treadmill syndrome' Became of their tremendous breeding potential and genetic diversity, many pests are known to withstand synthetic chemicals and bear offspring with a built-in resistance to pesticides.

• Glaring disadvantage: benefit that can easily be seen

• In check: under control

• Tremendous: huge

• Bear offspring: reproduce

• Built-in: included in something at the time that it is created

D The havoc that the `treadmill syndrome' can bring about is well illustrated by what happened to cotton farmers in Central America In the early 1940s, basking in the glory of chemical based intensive agriculture, the farmers avidly took to pesticides as a sure measure to boost crop yield The insecticide was applied eight times a year in the mid-1940s, rising to 28 in a season in the mid-1950s, following the sudden proliferation of three new varieties of chemical-resistant pests.

• Avidly= keenly

E By the mid-1960s, the situation took an alarming turn with the outbreak of four more new pests, necessitating pesticide spraying to such an extent that 50% of the financial outlay on cotton production was accounted for by pesticides In the early 1970s, the spraying frequently reached 70 times a season as the

farmers were pushed to the wall by the invasion of genetically stronger insect species

• Take an alarming turn with: alert

• Push to the wall: to force someone into a position where there is only one choice to make

F Most of the pesticides in the market today remain inadequately tested for properties that cause cancer and mutations as well as for other adverse effects on health, says a study by United States environmental agencies The United States National Resource Defense Council has found that DDT was the most popular

of a long list of dangerous chemicals in use

• Adverse effects: Negative results

G In the face of the escalating perils from indiscriminate applications of pesticides, a more effective and ecologically sound strategy of biological control, involving the selective use of natural enemies of the pest population, is fast gaining popularity — though, as yet, it is a new field with limited potential The advantage of biological control in contrast to other methods is that it provides a relatively low-cost, perpetual control system with a minimum of detrimental side-effects When handled by experts, bio-control is safe, non-polluting and

self-dispersing

• Escalate: to become greater, worse, more serious

• Perpetual = Continuous

• Side-effects: an extra and usually bad effect 

• Self-dispersing: to spread itself

H.The Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control (CIBC) in Bangalore, with its global network of research laboratories and field stations, is one of the most active, non-commercial research agencies engaged in pest control by setting natural predators against parasites CIBC also serves as a clearing-house for the export and import of biological agents for pest control worldwide.

• Engage in: Take part in

I CIBC successfully used a seed-feeding weevil, native to Mexico, to control the obnoxious parthenium weed, known to exert devious influence on agriculture and human health in both India and Australia Similarly, the Hyderabad-based Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), supported by CIBC, is now trying out an Argentinian weevil for the eradication of water hyacinth, another dangerous weed, which has become a nuisance in many parts of the world According to Mrs Kaiser Jamil of RRL, `The Argentinian weevil does not attack any other plant and a pair of adult bugs could destroy the weed in 4-5 days.' CIBC is also perfecting the technique for breeding parasites that prey on 'disapene scale' insects — notorious defoliants of fruit trees in the

US and India

• Obnoxious: Extremely unpleasant

• Exert: to use power or influence to affect somebody/something

• Devious: behaving in a dishonest or indirect way SYN: deceitful, underhand

• Notorious: well known for being bad

Lanka's flourishing coconut groves were plagued by leaf-miaing hispides, a larval parasite imported from Singapore brought the pest under control A natural predator indigenous to India, Neodumetia sangawani, was found useful in controlling the Rhodes grass-scale insect that was devouring forage grass in many parts of the US By using Neochetina bruci, a beetle native to Brazil, scientists at Kerala Agricultural University freed a 12-kilometrelong canal from the clutches of the weed Salvinia molesta, popularly called `African Payal' in Kerala About 30,000 hectares of rice fields in Kerala are infested by this weed.

• Press into service: to use something or someone that is not completelysuitable because nothing or no one more suitable is

available

• Bring sth under control: To assert control over someone or something, especially to limit their or its actions or potentially negative effects

Bring back the big cat 02

Source: ĐỀ THI IELTS READING

https://nativespeaker.vn/de-thi-ielts-reading-va-dap-an-bring-back-the-big-cats.html

which describes hunting a mystery animal called a llewyn But what was it? Nothing seemed to fit, until 2006, when an animal bone, dating from around the same period, was found in the Kinsey Cave in northern England Until this discovery, the lynx - a large spotted cat with tassel led ears - was presumed to have died out in Britain at least 6,000 years ago, before the

inhabitants of these islands took up farming But the 2006 find, together with three others in Yorkshire and Scotland, is compelling evidence that the lynx and the mysterious llewyn were, in fact, one and the same animal If this is so, it would bring forward the tassel-eared cat's estimated extinction date by roughly 5,000 years

• Bring forward: to change the date or time of an event so that it happens earlier than planned

• Compelling evidence = strong evidence

B However, this is not quite the last glimpse of the animal in British culture A 9th- century stone cross from the Isle of Eigg shows, alongside the deer, boar and aurochs pursued by a mounted hunter, a speckled cat with tasselled ears Were it not for the animal's backside having worn away with time, we could have been certain, as the lynx's stubby tail is unmistakable But even without this key feature, it's hard to see what else the creature could have been The lynx is now becoming the totemic animal of a movement that is transforming British environmentalism: rewilding.

• Glimpse: a glance

• Environmentalism: concern about the natural environment and how to improve and protect it

C Rewilding means the mass restoration of damaged ecosystems It involves letting trees return to places that have been denuded, allowing parts of the seabed to recover from trawling and dredging, permitting rivers to flow freely again Above all, it means bringing back missing species One of the most striking findings of modern ecology

is that ecosystems without large predators behave in completely different ways from those that retain them Some of them drive dynamic processes that resonate through the whole food chain, creating niches for hundreds of species that might otherwise struggle to survive The killers turn out to be bringers of life

• Denuded: to remove the covering of something, especiallyland

• Striking findings: findings that are significant

• Dynamic processes: processes that continuously change or develop

D Such findings present a big challenge to British conservation, which has often selected arbitrary assemblages

of plants and animals and sought, at great effort and expense, to prevent them from changing It has tried to preserve the living world as if it were a jar of pickles, letting nothing in and nothing out, keeping nature in a state of arrested development But ecosystems are not merely collections of species; they are also the dynamic and ever-shifting relationships between them And this dynamism often depends on large predators

• Arbitrary: not seeming to be based on a reason, system, or plan and sometimes seeming unfair

• Assemblage: a collection of things; a group of people

• Arrested development:  the stop of development

• Ever-shifting: always change

• Dynamism: energy and enthusiasm to make new things happen or to make things succeed

E At sea the potential is even greater: by protecting large areas from commercial fishing, we could once more see what 18th-century literature describes: vast shoals of fish being chased by fin and sperm whales, within sight of the English shore This policy would also greatly boost catches in the surrounding seas; the fishing industry's insistence on scouring every inch of seabed, leaving no breeding reserves, could not be more damaging to its own interests.

• Scour: to search a place or thing carefully and completely in order to find

F The lynx presents no threat to human beings: there is no known instance of one preying on people It is a specialist predator of roe deer, a species that has exploded in Britain in recent decades, holding back, by intensive browsing, attempts

to re-establish forests It will also winkle out sika deer: an exotic species that is almost impossible for human beings to control, as it hides in impenetrable plantations of young trees The attempt to reintroduce this predator marries well with

the aim of bringing forests back to parts of our bare and barren uplands The lynx requires deep cover, and as such presents little risk to sheep and other livestock, which are supposed, as a condition of farm subsidies, to be kept out of the woods

• Present no threat = pose no threat

• Marries well with: to combine two different things, ideas, etc successfully 

• Winkle out: to get or find something or someone with difficulty

within 20 years If trees return to the bare hills elsewhere in Britain, the big cats could soon follow There is nothing extraordinary about these proposals, seen from the perspective of anywhere else in Europe The lynx has now been reintroduced to the Jura Mountains, the Alps, the Vosges in eastern France and the Harz mountains in Germany, and has re-established itself in many more places The European population has tripled since 1970 to roughly 10,000 As with wolves, bears, beavers, boar, bison, moose and many other species, the lynx has been able to spread as farming has, left the hills and people discover that it is more lucrative to protect charismatic wildlife

than to hunt it, as tourists will pay for the chance to see it Large-scale rewilding is happening almost everywhere - except Britain

• Lucrative: producing a large amount of money; making a large profit

• Charismatic wildlife: Charismatic species are usually defined as “popular, serve as symbols and rallying points to stimulate conservation awareness and action.”

Testing animal intelligence 03

Source: IELTS READING PRACTICE TEST 7-2

https://www.ieltsg.com/2015/04/ielts-reading-practice-test-7-2.html

A Applying human intelligence tests to animals has been largely discredited, as these are designed to measure human intelligence Even time-honoured tests like putting rats into mazes can be deceptive, since such tests assume the animals will rely on the same senses as

we do A rat's primary sense organ is its nose, not its eyes Give a rat a maze of smells, not just visible walls, and it can solve it as fast as a human can

• Discredit: cause pp to stop

• Deceptive: making pp believe st that is not true

• Time-honoured: to be important or respected b/c of having existed for many years

D Animals can do things like navigating or remembering the locations of objects much better than we can What they don't do so well is apply reasoning to a whole range of problems, which is one of the things that has made human beings so successful as a species

• Navigate: to direct the way that a ship, aircraft,… will travel

dolphins, because they can't hear human speech very well And their own language is so different from ours that it will take years of research and enormous computing power to decipher it So far, scientists have only identified the names, or 'call-signs', by which dolphins seem to refer to themselves and each other, including talking about other dolphins who aren't present The best we can do is to develop a common language of signs.

• Decipher: to discover sth

• Call-sign: a message, code that is broadcasted by radio

H The Dolphin institute has even devised a signal meaning "be creative", at which the dolphin will make up some previously unseen behavior Combine the signals for "create" and "with another dolphin" and two dolphins can produce an instant synchronized routine This suggests that they can communicate with one another and either design the routine together or agree that one will be the leader

• Synchronized: happen at the same time

• Devise: to invent sth by imagination

I In the wild, dolphins cooperate to catch fish by driving them onto a beach, and this behavior is not restricted to their own species In Argentina, dolphins collaborate with fishermen to drive fish into the latter's nets, in return for a share of the catch Each dolphin will only work with a particular fisherman and, when they breed, their offspring work with the same man

• In return for: as an exchange for sth

J As more research is done, we can increasingly appreciate the complexities of other species' behavior Monkeys and apes seldom

resort to violence to get their own way, preferring social manipulation and deception The most successful members of the group tend to be those who are best at soliciting support, or who have the largest families to back up their opinions - not the biggest or strongest as with, say, rutting stags Research has shown that chimps can perform surprisingly complex sequences of actions to process food, such as collecting a bundie of leaves or cracking nuts with a rock This implies the ability to plan things in their minds before starting the task, otherwise they might get muddled forgetting to place all the leaves the same way round, or find a hard, level resting place for the nut, for instance

• Manipulation: to control so or sth to your own advantage

• Get muddled: to be confused

• Solicit: beg